Joaquin Castro visits five-year-old Liam Ramos at Dilley detention center

Congressman Joaquin Castro met today with five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father at the Dilley detention center in Texas, posting a photograph on social media of Liam resting in his father’s arms and saying he told the boy “how much his family, his school, and our country loves him and is praying for him”.

Liam became a symbol of the wider Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Minneapolis after he was detained on his way home from preschool; a widely shared photograph showed him in ICE custody wearing a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack.

Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of Liam’s school, said in a statement that Liam and his father had been apprehended on their way home from school. She said an agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”.

At a later press conference, Castro said Liam seemed lethargic and added that “his father said that Liam has been very depressed since he’s been at Dilley.”

The reporting confirms Castro’s visit, the social media photograph and statements from school and family representatives; it does not specify Liam’s current legal status or whether and when he might be released from the detention center.

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